He Caved...Again!

British musician, Chris Lowe, is quoted as saying, "stupidity, combined with arrogance and a huge ego, will get you a long way."  When we apply that reasoning to  Barack Obama's announcement this past week, we have to admit that it didn't get him nearly where he wanted to go at all.      

This past week Obama's arrogance once again led him to an impossible situation.  Either through his own folly or the idiotic advice of his staff, Obama scheduled to speak to the nation on his solution to the unemployment crisis at the same time that the Republican Presidential candidates would be debating in California at the Reagan Presidential Library. 

This campaign year, the as yet unopposed Obama, doesn't need to worry about impressing voters with his oratorical/debate skills in order to lure their votes.  The GOP field however comprises candidates that need to be heard by a national audience.  Barack Obama put off this long awaited speech, in which he will outline to the country how he plans to resolve the economic situation and create jobs, until he returned from his Martha's Vineyard vacation.  The schedule for the Republican debates has been set for months.  We are certain that Mr. Obama and his staff knew it well. 

When a president wishes to address a joint session of Congress, it is customary to work quietly and privately to come to an accord on a date which is later announced to the public and the media.  Mr. Obama once again dispensed with protocol and simply announced that he would address the country, in a joint session of Congress at the exact same time as the Republicans planned their debate in California.  The move was inconsiderate, yet characteristic of the Obama arrogance we've all come to expect.

If Mr. Obama is going to beat the Republican candidate in the 2012 elections, he must win the debate over the unemployment crisis.  Surely the stupidity on the part of his staff to schedule his speech at the same time was not a coincidence.  Because the  Obama administration is under a great deal of pressure from the left and his Democratic supporters to appear tough with the Republicans, it was a foolish and almost juvenile decision to make.  If they thought that the Republicans would budge and change their debate time then the Obama administration is taking entirely too much for granted.  If the political left is exerting pressure on Obama, the political right, tired of three years of a failed administration, are pushing the GOP with equal or greater intensity not to allow the left to get the upper hand.

Besides the fact that changing the GOP debates would also be an affront to Nancy Reagan, Speaker Boehner, emboldened by recent victories, was not about to back off.   In the meantime Obama's supporters were adamant that he not appear to compromise once again.  Unbelievably,  in spite of the importance of the job crisis, both parties had to consider the beginning of the National  Football  League's  2011 - 2012  season.

We don't understand what possessed the president or his advisers to propose his speaking opposite the Republican debate, but it was a  decision that  even Democratic strategist James Carville considered to be an  "ill advised" move.   

Certainly the GOP debate has gotten quite a bit more publicity from this controversy than it might otherwise have received.  We don't have statistics on how many Americans watch the president when he addresses the nation.  In all honesty we make it a habit not to tune in.  The incessant television coverage  afterwards will keep us informed of what he said. 

It is simply incomprehensible that the revelation of this supposedly all important plan could wait until AFTER his vacation, but would have to be scheduled at a very inopportune time.  After much criticism,  Obama has now accepted Speaker Boehner's invitation to speak to the nation at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 8, and promises to be finished by kickoff time.  That is not exactly the image the Democratic party wants him to portray.

To paraphrase Chris Lowe's quotation, the only place that  "stupidity, combined with arrogance and a huge ego" got the president was in the unwanted position  where he once again appears to have caved, and political consequences for the lack of wisdom will be paid.    

TWO SISTERS